It is many times extremely valuable to release a multitude of objects, such as stores or sonobuoys, from an aircraft flying at a predetermined speed to cover a wide dispersal, geographical area. This problem is made more difficult by attempting to maintain all of the objects internal to the transporting aircraft. The low exit velocities of the objects cause them to merely fall beneath the aircraft in a relatively straight line. If parachutes are attached, they, too, will cause drift in nearly the same direction.
A flight control means for bombs is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,324,433, entitled "Flight-Control Means For Bombs", issued on Dec. 9, 1919 to G. T. Phillips, Jr. This patent discloses means which continue to direct the flight path of the bombs, once released from an aircraft, mainly in the vertical direction. Another invention, described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,584,826 entitled "Aerodynamic Surface For Dirigible Bombs", issued on Feb. 5, 1952 to R. D. Wyckoff, also shows that bombs may have lifting surfaces in the form of a prismatic shell. Neither of these two devices disclose how a store may achieve a predictable flight path, without using moveable control surfaces, once released from an aircraft.